Beginning about 2008, golf's rulemaking authorities changed the Rules of Golf to allow an increased number of options for making golf clubs “adjustable.” This change in the Rules of Golf has led to a variety of new golf club constructions, particularly for drivers and fairway woods. As some examples, many golf clubs now are designed with mechanisms that allow the head and shaft to be easily disconnected and reconnected, optionally, to exchange shafts or heads with respect to one another, to change various angles (e.g., face angle, loft angle, lie angle, etc.), etc. In some commercially available structures, releasable golf club head and shaft connection technology is coupled with other customization options, such as the ability to engage one or more different weights with weight ports or other weight receiving elements on the club head to adjust the weighting characteristics of the club. Technology also is available to allow for variations in the physical positioning of weights on a golf club head. In some known and commercially available golf clubs, the overall length of the shaft also may be adjusted.
These customization and adjustability options for golf club settings can provide a number of possible settings and/or orientations of parts for a single golf club. But these customization and adjustability options can be somewhat daunting for a player, who must work to determine which setting(s) is (are) best for their game. Moreover, determining the best settings can be a time consuming endeavor, and many casual golfers do not have the desire or practice time available to properly test and determine the best settings for their game. Therefore, many golfers with adjustable golf club technology will find particular settings or other arrangement of parts that they like and then forever keep their club fixed with those settings and arrangements. Such users are not necessarily getting the most out of the customizable and adjustable golf club technology that they have purchased.
Additionally, club and/or ball fitting, even on an individual level, is not necessarily a “one-size-fits-all” situation. A golfer's swing may vary on any given day (e.g., due to swing changes they are working on, due to injury or soreness, etc.), thus making the adjustable golf club settings, golf club selections, or golf ball selections for one round not necessarily optimal for the golfer in another round. Also, the optimal adjustable golf club settings or equipment selections for a given round of golf may change for an individual golfer depending on various factors, such as the weather, the golf course design, the daily golf course set up, the golf course condition, and the like. Most golfers are not well versed with information relating to these numerous details to enable then to reliably select the best adjustable golf club settings and/or golf equipment selections (e.g., clubs or balls) that can take this type of additional information into account.
Accordingly, systems and methods that would help golfers determine which adjustable golf club settings and/or other equipment options are best for their game, optionally at any give time, for any given round, and/or at any desired golf course, would be a welcome advance in the art.